Tours, France, December 18, 2013. As they were cheered by 2,600 fans at the Robert Grenon sports hall, the home heroes of TOURS VB beat Bulgaria’s champions Marek Union-Ivkoni DUPNITSA in straight sets (25-17, 25-15, and 25-22) to qualify to the Playoffs 12 of the 2014 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League – Men as one of the second-ranked teams with the best score across all Pools. TOURS VB finished the prelims with five wins and 13 points, with the standing of Pool A finally topped by Italy’s Copra Elior PIACENZA with 16.
The match started pretty well for the home heroes (6:4) and after their opponents fought back to 10:9, the hosts re-opened the gap (13:10, 16:12) to comfortably claim the first set (25-17).
TOURS VB trailed 1:3 in the second set but got back control of the game already at the first technical time-out (8:7). With four aces by their team captain David Konecny the French guys could move the score up to 14:7 and they did not find any resistance from the Bulgarian champions, so quickly cruising to the 25-15 that sealed their 2:0 lead in sets.
The score was very close in set 3 (5:5) and Marek Union could even set the pace of the game (10:13) before TOURS VB fought back to flip the charts around by the second technical time-out (16:14). Even though the Bulgarians attempted a late comeback (20:19), the hosts did not look back anymore and with the final 25-22 and 3:0 victory booked their ticket to the Playoffs 12.
“We played a great game tonight and especially David Konecny showed a good performance” said TOURS VB head coach Mauricio Paes. “We are definitely getting ready for the Playoffs.”
“This year our main goal is to make it as far as possible in this competition and we will fight bravely to accomplish this mission” added libero Jean-François Exiga.
“This evening TOURS VB was much better than us. We made too many mistakes and this is reflected by the final result displayed on the scoreboard” commented Bulgarian mentor Nayden Naydenov.